Maine Constitution Forbids Revival of Civil Claims for Which Statute of Limitations Had Already Lapsed

An interesting (though very long) majority and dissent handed down Tuesday, in Dupuis v. Roman Catholic Bishop. The opinions well illustrate how many state courts interpret their state constitutions. Some very brief excerpts from the majority

Legislation reviving claims that have expired under the statutes of limitations applicable at the time of the operative events was not deemed by the framers to be a “law” within the power of the Legislature to enact…. This constitutional hostility to legislative efforts to retroactively impair rights, privileges, and/or property, viewing such efforts as beyond the Legislature’s function, is reflected in the earliest of our case law [citing a case from 1823, three years after Maine became a state]….

Contemporaneous common law principles can inform the meaning of constitutional provisions because many constitutional concepts originated in the common law. Post-enactment common law and statutes can also illuminate timeless social understandings and values embedded in the Constitution. Long before the adoption of the Maine Constitution, the common law condemned the concept of retroactive liability….

In terms of sheer numbers, at the time of the adoption of our Constitution and for a lengthy period thereafter, the great majority of jurisdictions precluded the revival of claims after their statutes of limitations had expired. After the Supreme Court’s decision in Campbell v. Holt (1885), in which the majority held that revival was permitted, some courts deviated from this position. If one includes jurisdictions with
constitutions that contain express anti-retroactivity provisions … then, despite the Supreme Court’s view, the majority of state courts of last resort continue to adhere to the view that revival is precluded.

The Supreme Court’s “right-remedy” approach, set forth in Campbell, is not persuasive because it fails to acknowledge the impact of the revival of an expired claim….

The Supreme Court’s post-Campbell balancing approach is not persuasive because it is contrary to our longstanding and sound constitutional protection of vested rights….

Sociological considerations support prospective, not retroactive, elimination of statutes of limitations for sexual assaults….

There’s a lot more there, of course. Some excerpts from Justice Douglas’s dissent, joined by Justice Lawrence:

True, some of our prior decisions may have said or implied that lapsed claims cannot be revived. Never before, though, have we squarely confronted the issue presented by this case: whether the Maine Constitution prohibits the Legislature from enacting a statute that retroactively repeals a statute of limitations, thereby allowing a previously barred claim to proceed. I therefore do not ϐind these prior decisions—or, more precisely, statements amounting to dicta made in the course of those decisions—to be binding or persuasive here. Moreover, the fact that the Legislature previously may not have enacted such legislation does not negate its constitutional authority to do so. Rather, it simply may spotlight the uniqueness and urgency of the circumstances prompting the Legislature to rebalance competing policies—and to take the action it did—in this particular instance….

I do not agree that the running of a statute of limitations—an arbitrary constraint on
bringing suit that “represent[s] a public policy about the privilege to litigate,” first imposed, then removed, by the Legislature—amounts to a vested right consistent with those that our jurisprudence has recognized to date. To conclude otherwise, as the Court does here, effectively confers an absolute constitutional right upon an alleged tortfeasor to be relieved of having to answer to a lawsuit of this nature based on the age of the claim, regardless of the circumstances and contrary to other express constitutional guarantees. “[T]here is no such thing as a vested right to do wrong ….”

The case involved a statute reviving long-expired statutes of limitations for child sexual abuse claims. I have no firm view myself on that question, but I am quite skeptical of the modern trend to allow claims that are many decades old (whether by reviving expiring statutes of limitations or having no statute of limitations on them at all). In particular, in this case the lawsuit was brought in 2022 based on alleged behavior in 1961; I can’t see how justice could have effectively been done in this situation, when so many witnesses would have died, so many documents would have been destroyed, and so many memories would have faded or would have otherwise become less accurate.

I was pleased to see the majority citing Nathan S. Chapman & Michael W. McConnell, Due Process as Separation of Powers, 121 Yale L.J. 1672 (2012) several times; Michael is a colleague and friend of mine, and both he and Nathan Chapman have guest-blogged here before (though on matters other than their article).

Gerald F. Petruccelli, Scott D. Dolan, James B. Haddow, and Michael K. Martin (Petruccelli, Martin & Haddow, LLP) represent the Roman Catholic Bishop.

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